


A Life to Spare

by Heilith



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-16
Updated: 2020-05-16
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:02:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24213346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heilith/pseuds/Heilith
Summary: Gil-galad considers giving up his immortality for his human lover
Relationships: Ereinion Gil-galad/Reader
Comments: 2
Kudos: 23





	A Life to Spare

You are sleeping alone.

Gil-galad spends a moment, letting the realization sink in with him, while his eyes are feasting on the sweetness of your restful face.

You are alone. You’ve been waiting for him. And if not, he still retains a chance to fight for you.

You belong to no one.

He trusts you to keep his heart, and yet whenever he returns to this place, he braces himself for discovering it in shatters. Each time, against all his love and better judgement, he expects to see you’ve estranged yourself from him. 

He’s afraid of finding you with a child in your arms. A lover in your thoughts and your bed. His visits are too rare to save him any hope that he’s worthy of your commitment.

By the rites of his people you are already his, and he is yours, but he forces himself to succumb to your kin’s ways. He asks for no promises, as you have never asked him for any.

Gil-galad struggles to believe it doesn’t matter, if he’s still a welcome guest here.

But deep down inside he is never sure he’s not just a fad of yours, a curiosity of a kind. You’re young, and you’re a mortal. You have all the rights to explore everything life sends your way, and cannot be judged for inconstancy.

If he loved you less, it wouldn’t mean as much. 

There’s enough room under your blanket for him, but your deserve better than to wake up next to a sloven, covered with dust of a dozen of roads and moody from the long day of riding. He’d been speeding his horse almost into exhaustion and still arrived long after the nightfall - he was never that late. 

With a shake of his head Gil-galad cedes his place by your side to a modest bunch of lissuin, he kept by his heart since early in the morning. 

The flowers are almost as fresh as the moment he picked them up in Lindon, and, freed from the silk wrapping, burst with fragrance so strong he fears it will disturb you.

He places them into your half-open hand, regretfully denies the pleasure of kissing you, and walks out of your bedroom, prepared to last through the night in silence.

Fire is the first thing he takes care of. The place have always been too cold in the mornings. A smile passes across his lips at the memory of the small grimace of displeasure you pulled each time, coming out of the much hotter bedroom. And yet you never seemed to remember to wrap yourself in a throw of any sort or even put on your shoes. You left it to him to keep you warm, to scoop you into his arms and cuddle you up, his hair on end from acute tenderness, when you buried your face in his neck and whispered your gratitude into his flaring skin.

He missed you sorely. 

He moves around the house at leisure, getting used to the changes, brought in, while he was away. Small, mostly. The fire is alive now, humming and crackling softly, the only sounds to break the quietness of the after-midnight.

Contrary to what he hoped for, his mind is not lightened even when he feels more or less at home.

Soon Gil-galad loses count of how many times he passed by the door to your bedroom. Another dozen of them breaks him, and he resolves to give you just another glance. He’s been away for too long. The simple knowing that you are mere yards away no longer satisfies him.

He doesn’t go farther than the door frame. 

It feels strange to be immersed into such lull. At any other time he would welcome it, but now the silence is unnatural. Eerie. 

You are too quiet a sleeper. The moonrays are motionless across the bedsheets, your chest is still, as though there’s no longer air in it.

For some reason he barely restrains the wish to speak up, to drop something. The urge is strong enough to make him clench his teeth, blocking the way to your name, which is fighting to be released.

You don’t stir. The lissuins have not moved an inch from where he left them and lie peacefully between your loose fingers. 

Like the last offering to the dead.

For a moment he’s not alive from the stark panic that washes over him. His heart misses beat by beat until you sigh in your sleep and turn your head a little. 

The relief is bigger than him. It crushes him almost to complete numbness. Gil-galad wants to smile at his folly and fails miserably.

The pain of the loss still vibrates in him, and he’s doomed to relieve it each moment from now on.

He finds no joy in the awareness that it is only the matter of time till the fright he has come through will become just too real.

He now realizes it clearer than ever that you’re not a blessing, but a promise of a torment.

Coming to his senses, he steps out of the door back forward, unable to leave you out of sight, even though he longs for it. 

He won’t bear it. 

To flee is his best option. The wisest one – to go and leave you alone, for the good and the bad, for someone else’s arms, for his own woe.

It will be easy to steal out of the house while you’re still asleep.

The flowers spring to his mind just a moment after his foot lands over the threshold, making him growl aloud. 

He should have brought you a jewel instead, something that would leave no trace, if he took it back with him.

It’s too late to regret it now. The scent will cling to the bed and the very air for hours. Gil-galad is forced to give up on the hope to keep his visit a secret from you. The uninventive token of affection binds him to the house now. He cannot let you know he was here and ran away like a scorched rat.

He’d never bear you to think of him as a betrayer. He can have you mourn over him, but not despise him.

But there will be no next time. He’ll love you for one last day. One week, his inner voice alters faintheartedly. And then he’ll step out of your life for the rest of it.

Having barely crystallized, the thought sobers him up. What difference will it make, if he stumbles out of your heart? You won’t leave his. His escape won’t make you dissolve into thin air, like you have never existed. You will still be out somewhere. You will live. And you will die.

Gil-galad cringes. Almost doubles up. Saying it even in his mind is more painful than anything he could imagine. 

Some half-a-century from now he will know, and carry the knowing with him helplessly till the end of times. 

Unless…

Slowly he slumps into the chair by the fireplace. The flames are shooting upward, feeding on the income of air from his movements. The room must be heated through, but he doesn’t feel warm.

Unless he shortens his own days by his own choice.

He would lie saying he didn’t have it on his mind before. 

Gil-galad questions the strength of his determination.

How come he has to waver between the commonplace death and oblivion and the eternal grief?

It makes him bitter to acknowledge his backbone is too weak for the weight of either option.

He’s scared. A death in a battle is the end he’s come to terms with. A torture he could stand. But the willed fading…

The demise of Elros, that treacherous gradual descend into feebleness, is too fresh on him. He dreads the fate. The what ifs that it invites.

…He’ll outlive you in any case. He will have to last through decades with his soul torn out of him.

And if the worse happens, you’ll fall out of love with him before that.

Oh, sorrow is him…

The gentle touch on the shoulder brings him back to where he’s no longer alone. He doesn’t see you yet, but you are with him, mind and body. 

“You’re here,” your voice is as tender as he remembers it.

It took him long to get used to the fact that his senses do not react to your presence the way they should. He is too relaxed around you, taking all the guards down involuntary. You rarely fail to catch him by surprise, when you want it. 

He throws his head back and stares into your face. Your smile holds the radiance of a thousand of suns. The most beautiful sight he’s ever beheld.

“Do you love me?” asks he huskily. Like a virgin, who pledges herself to that very first lover, knowing her resistance is already failing, and yet trying to save her dignity. 

Instead of an answer you lean over to him, and he is lost in the feeling of your tender lips against his. Of your love echoing through him, reaching to his every cell. It breathes tranquility into him, his troubles put to rest little by little. 

Did he truly think of leaving you?

“Of course, not,” you whisper into the sweet, silly, upside-down kiss, “What made you think so?”

You bring him down to earth in more than one way. He groans in bitter frustration, then laughs without mirth. Has anyone seen a praised Orc-slayer get so carried away with concern for the safety of his own sorry hide and feelings.

“You’re killing me,” sighs he, slipping his arms up and over you neck to bring you cheek to cheek with him. He can let himself be ironic in the choice of words now. Your kiss was all that made the difference. It would have, even if it had been the last one he’d have from you.

He notices the lissuin you’re holding only as the soft petals are brushing along his jawline. Gil-galad shudders with a surge of longing, which you tame with another kiss.

“Do you want these on your grave?” you ask him on a note of mild teasing.

“Ai, meleth…”

He won’t tell you. He cannot have you carry the burden of his mortality, too. There are enough reasons to suspect you wouldn’t praise his decision. To him, it seems to be dictated by selfishness rather than love.

But, weak and lost, he still longs to be soothed in his poignant choice. Not in his doubts, for he has none now.

You always feel his mood better than he can express it. 

“I love you,” you say earnestly, “I love you. I love you. I love you. For as many times as you ask – I love you.” 

His arms are open, when you finally choose to place yourself into his embrace.

He makes you his greedily this night. No kiss is deep enough, no gasp is too sharp. He can’t hear too many of your faltering outcries and can’t hold in his own ones. He doesn’t want to.

“Sleep,” Gil-galad whispers, when there’s nothing more he can give you or take from you, “We’re leaving this place tomorrow.”

He prays for you not to protest, not now. It wouldn’t change his mind, but would add more heaviness to it.

He needs your trust more than ever.

“Where?” you ask him in a sleep filled-voice, your fingers drawing slow circles over his chest.

He smiles – a true smile now, free of any shadow. It feels like you could offer him no better gift. 

“Home,” replies he below his breath, “I’ll take you home.”


End file.
